Partners Personnel

Rank: 4
Headquarters: Santa Barbara, California
Top staffing segment(s) served: Industrial
Final 2021 revenue (in millions): $637.4 million
Final CAGR 2017 through 2021: 125.2%
Website: partnerspersonnel.com

Partners Personnel’s key to growth boils down to culture, its focus on relationships with its associates — the contingent workers — and how it treats its own internal colleagues.

The Santa Barbara, California-based firm constantly works to maintain an environment where internal employees can grow. To that end, it surveys its more than 400 internal workers each year to generate a Net Promoter Score and learn whether it is on the right track. The ultimate goal: By treating internal workers well, those workers will in turn treat the associates well.

“When we started Partners, we said, ‘Hey, the world isn’t asking for just another staffing company, but what we think the world really does need is a staffing company that focuses on the associate — the associate experience and the associate relationship,’” Partners President Mark McComb says.

For example, recruiters at Partners Personnel are all candidate facing; they don’t split their time working on sales to clients. In addition, Partners Personnel focuses on the growth of its internal
workers.

“We strive to be an organization where people get better by being a part of Partners Personnel,” McComb says. “They get better financially, but they also get better in any area of their life, they learn skills … They are part of a culture and get to associate with other people who just help them to develop.”

The company spends time and resources investing in its culture, all with the aim of treating internal workers well so they will treat the associates well.

“When we create that positive environment, when employees feel highly engaged and valued and they see a clear path to how they can be successful, they stay longer, they refer their friends, they take better care of our clients and associate employees,” CEO Paul Sorensen says. “We take care of internal colleagues, and then they take care of clients and associates.”

Sorensen also cites an African proverb that says if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, then go with a team.

Partners Personnel was founded in 2017 by Sorensen’s brother, Steve Sorensen, a longtime staffing industry veteran. Unfortunately, Steve Sorensen passed away in January 2021.

“He still leaves a very, very big shadow,” McComb says. “Those of us who have worked with him are very motivated to continue his dream.”

Steve Sorensen also set the company up on its growth trajectory that led to its placement on SIA’s Fastest-Growing US Staffing Firms list in its first year of eligibility.

For 2022, Paul Sorensen says Partners Personnel is seeing continued growth, and he sees the current market as remaining employee-driven. The imbalance of supply and demand is not something that’s going to go away in the short run, especially in the temporary staffing market.

Partners Personnel plans to continue investing in relationships. And while it’s also aggressively investing in technology, people remain at the forefront.

“We continue to believe that people should be at the front seat,” Paul Sorensen says. “Technology is a key enabler for those people, but it’s not the other way around.”

He often repeats another saying: If you chase money, wisdom will elude you. But if you chase wisdom, the money will follow. Sorensen says that’s a good snapshot of the company’s philosophy.

2022 FASTEST-GROWING US STAFFING FIRMS

Partners Personnel

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